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Serving the Art and Others
77 Plays1 year ago
In this episode I discuss the importance of servanthood in the Christian faith, as demonstrated by Christ, and how the idea of serving revolutionizes our approach to our art and others, regardless of the medium we work in.
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Transcript
Introduction to Servanthood in Faith and Art
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome back to Artist of the Way.
00:00:06
Speaker
I'm John the host.
00:00:08
Speaker
Super excited for you guys to be joining us today.
00:00:10
Speaker
Today it's just me and I'm talking about the concept of servanthood both in the Christian faith and in regards to our art.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's a concept that's kind of been swirling in my brain in the last couple weeks.
00:00:23
Speaker
So I thought I would share some of those thoughts here.
Cultural Perspectives on Serving and Self-Care
00:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's a few interesting things when we think about serving in our culture today and in the church and in art.
00:00:38
Speaker
A lot of baggage that comes with all of those things.
00:00:42
Speaker
I think we're in a weird time when it comes to serving and doing things for others.
00:00:48
Speaker
in our culture in some ways I see a lot of things that are really encouraging with it right like I there's a lot of different friend groups I've been a part of where I have seen people really go the extra mile and really put themselves on the back burner to take care of other people who are in need and help them through situations on the flip side I've also seen you know situations where people seem really unwilling to help or maybe using
00:01:16
Speaker
The idea of taking care of themselves or boundaries to such an extreme where they're now no longer engaging in sort of self-sacrificial serving.
00:01:28
Speaker
I think I've been blessed probably to see a little bit more of the former than the latter, but it's definitely there in our culture.
Personal Reflections on Service and Sabbath
00:01:35
Speaker
And it's a tension, right?
00:01:36
Speaker
And it's a tension...
00:01:37
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we all have in ourselves.
00:01:38
Speaker
I know I definitely have it of like, okay, you know, definitely with the sort of church environment I grew up in, it was definitely like, you know, you, and I don't know if this was explicit messaging, but I definitely learned this sort of idea of like, I've always got to put myself on the back burner to be helping other people, right?
00:02:00
Speaker
So it can be difficult to kind of figure out, okay, now what are, what do, what's a healthy,
00:02:07
Speaker
sort of framework for servanthood in the church look like.
00:02:11
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What do I need?
00:02:12
Speaker
Do I need some rest?
00:02:14
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God clearly wants us to rest and take care of ourselves.
00:02:17
Speaker
That's part of what the purpose of the Sabbath was, right?
00:02:20
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Is this day that's set apart for rest and connecting to God to let him take care of us.
00:02:27
Speaker
But even as we put importance on that, we should not lessen the importance of serving.
00:02:35
Speaker
So I'm going to chat a little bit about it theologically first, and then we'll talk about a little bit of how it's kind of present in my life right now and the importance of it in art as we're working as artists, especially in our sort of modern artistic landscape.
00:02:51
Speaker
Because I think some of those are quite interesting.
00:02:54
Speaker
So...
00:02:56
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First of all, the importance of serving,
Jesus' Teachings on Servanthood
00:02:59
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right?
00:02:59
Speaker
I don't think it can really be debated that we're supposed to serve as Christians, but just in case it can, I'll just lay out a little framework for us.
00:03:11
Speaker
You can find a lot of different themes in scripture and in the Christian faith about serving, but I think probably the most...
00:03:21
Speaker
concrete sort of call for us as believers, every believer to serve is, um, from the words of Jesus.
00:03:29
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He says this both in Matthew and in Mark, I'm going to quote the Mark one.
00:03:33
Speaker
Um, he says Mark 10 45 for even the son of man did not come to serve or excuse me, to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
00:03:47
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Obviously, he's looking ahead to the crucifixion, you know, cavalry, his ultimate sacrifice there.
00:03:56
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But we shouldn't just take this and think an important part of this passage is definitely the love of Christ for us, right?
00:04:04
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He's willing, as Paul says, to give up heaven, right?
00:04:08
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Doesn't count that as something to be gained, but counts himself as,
00:04:13
Speaker
you know, among us comes down, is willing to sacrifice all of that for us.
00:04:17
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Certainly that's amazing.
00:04:18
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We shouldn't miss the love of God there.
00:04:22
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But we also really need to notice, okay, he's not, he's not exclusively saying he's just coming for this purpose of like saving us through the cross.
00:04:36
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That is his ultimate work, right?
00:04:37
Speaker
But he says,
00:04:39
Speaker
The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
00:04:44
Speaker
That's part of his service to us, his people and the world.
00:04:50
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But that's one of a lot of things that he did.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's the penultimate thing.
00:04:57
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But then when we look at following Christ's example as believers, as we're called to do, right?
00:05:02
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Paul says that, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
00:05:06
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There's the often used phrased Christ-like.
00:05:08
Speaker
We want to be like Christ, conformed to the image of Christ in the best way possible, where we're still uniquely ourselves, but also ourselves.
00:05:19
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wholly embodying the call and life of Christ, right?
00:05:25
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In the sense of like, we are Christ's people going about Christ's work in the world.
00:05:30
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And hopefully perfectly reflecting that, which we never will, but by the grace of God, we move that way.
00:05:36
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Anyways, that was verbose.
00:05:41
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In all of that, in doing, living the life of a Christian, walking the walk of a Christian, a key component is serving.
00:05:50
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Christ served, therefore we should serve.
00:05:53
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If our God himself came down and served us,
00:06:01
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we have no excuse to do anything less but to serve those around us, right?
00:06:06
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And I think that this even extends to when we don't want to serve, probably especially in those moments.
Challenges and Reliance on God's Strength
00:06:12
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And this is something I think I've been relearning a little bit in the current season, which is part of why this idea of service and servitude is
00:06:22
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I want to be using the word servanthood, not servitude, because that sounds like slavery.
00:06:29
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But that's part of why this is sort of coming up to the surface for me.
00:06:33
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I'm relearning that when I'm weak, Christ is strong.
00:06:39
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I think...
00:06:42
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That that's incredibly profound and easy to forget when you grow up in the church, right?
00:06:51
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This comes from 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9.
00:06:56
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Paul is talking about, first about all his credentials, right?
00:07:02
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He's like, I am, these are all the reasons I can be considered a great person.
00:07:08
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in the world.
00:07:10
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And then also I've suffered all these things through the church.
00:07:13
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But to keep me from being conceited,
00:07:16
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God gave me this thorn in the flesh.
00:07:17
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We don't know what that thorn is.
00:07:19
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It could be a psychological struggle.
00:07:22
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It could be a physical struggle, you know, health-wise.
00:07:26
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Or it could be like an emotional, mental, or spiritual thing.
00:07:31
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It could be a sin issue.
00:07:32
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We really don't know, which I think is some genius on probably the Holy Spirit's part working through Paul, to keep that somewhat ambiguous and
00:07:41
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In that we can see our own struggles and thorns in that, right?
00:07:43
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So for me in this current season, I can see the struggle that I'm having, the reasons that I'm tired.
00:07:50
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I can see that in there.
00:07:52
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And I don't think it is an abuse to the text to say, you know, in this season, I have this thorn in the flesh.
00:08:02
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I'm struggling with depression or anxiety or, you know, health problems that we don't know what's going on or cancer or, you know, an addiction, this, that, all these things that completely beat us down and leave us with nothing.
00:08:20
Speaker
Right.
00:08:21
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And I've for me, it's it's mostly just like.
00:08:27
Speaker
In this season, I feel like I'm giving a lot to a lot of different things.
00:08:31
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I think that's slowing down.
00:08:33
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But I think that that's been, for me, kind of the...
00:08:39
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sort of ethos is the only word I'm thinking of.
00:08:41
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So I can't think of a less fancy word, but the ethos of this season, right?
00:08:45
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I'm really giving a lot of things in a lot of different areas to varying degrees of perfection, by which I mean many of them not doing amazingly and hoping that God is working in that.
00:08:57
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But
00:08:59
Speaker
For me, it is, okay, Lord, I have another obligation.
00:09:02
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This is an obligation.
00:09:03
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It's not something that I can just ignore or put off.
00:09:09
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I have to do this and I have to do it well.
00:09:11
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I can't phone this in.
00:09:13
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I need to do this well.
00:09:15
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And I don't have it in me.
00:09:16
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I hit my table.
00:09:18
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I don't have it in me to do it well.
00:09:21
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So open our hands and just like
00:09:26
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We often, you know, I often think of opening my hands as like, Lord, here is all the things I'm holding on to and trying to control, or here's all the things I'm really worried about.
00:09:38
Speaker
But in this instance, I can just open my hands and say, okay, Lord, this is what I have, and this is what I have to do.
00:09:45
Speaker
And, you know, if this requires 100% of my, you know, effort, I can only get my bar to 20% or to 30%.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I need you to get me to 100%.
00:09:55
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And that for me is encouraging to remember as a Christian,
00:10:02
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I can continue to put that foot of love and mercy and servanthood forward to my friends, to my family, to the world, to the places I minister to.
00:10:18
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And trust that if...
00:10:21
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Not if, and just trust that God will work through me wherever I'm at to whatever varying degrees of things I do.
00:10:27
Speaker
In this season, there's some things I think I'm doing pretty good on.
00:10:30
Speaker
And there's some things that I know I am not doing very well.
00:10:34
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And I'm going to have an evaluation with some people and be like, okay, I don't think I did this well.
00:10:39
Speaker
Let's figure that out and figure out moving forward.
00:10:42
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But I am giving it my best and trusting God to make up for the rest.
00:10:51
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Now, that still means I need to be and we need to be as people of God conscious of, OK, what are our limits, right?
00:10:57
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Our limits and our boundaries are good God given things.
00:11:01
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We're human.
00:11:02
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He made us physical.
00:11:03
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We can only be in one spot at a time.
00:11:06
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We have six days of a week to work and then one day for rest.
00:11:09
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We're supposed to have that rest.
00:11:11
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We're supposed to receive from God.
00:11:12
Speaker
So trying to be very intentional about that.
00:11:15
Speaker
But.
00:11:17
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Also not being afraid to say, okay, I feel like I'm on empty, but this is something I'm obliged to do as a family member or as a friend or as a coworker or as a volunteer here or somebody who's running this thing.
00:11:34
Speaker
Or as a Christian, we're called to do this as a part of our calling as the people of God.
00:11:41
Speaker
And we can embrace that and step out into that difficulty of serving, serving the world, serving our friends and family, just as Christ calls us to, knowing that he's going to get us the rest of the way.
00:11:59
Speaker
So.
00:12:02
Speaker
That is sort of the theological side coming from some different life experience things.
Serving Art and Audience over Self
00:12:06
Speaker
But it's also come from the artistic side.
00:12:08
Speaker
Obviously, if you know me, I do a lot of arts things.
00:12:12
Speaker
A couple of the different arts things I've been doing recently have just made me think again about the importance of serving in art.
00:12:21
Speaker
Right.
00:12:24
Speaker
Which is an interesting thing to say in this day and age.
00:12:28
Speaker
Um...
00:12:30
Speaker
But I think we always as artists need to move in the direction of serving the work.
00:12:39
Speaker
I think I got that phrase from Brad Garnott.
00:12:42
Speaker
But this idea that ultimately everything I do as an artist...
00:12:49
Speaker
From an artistic standpoint, now I'm overthinking this.
00:12:51
Speaker
I mean, we're doing it to the glory of God, right?
00:12:53
Speaker
But part of that is serving this work and making this work of art that we're creating as good as it can be, right?
00:13:00
Speaker
And that means that we as artists need to be able to let go of the stuff of it that is ours and...
00:13:08
Speaker
Just make the work what it can be.
00:13:12
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A lot of times I think about this as writing.
00:13:16
Speaker
I think that's the most natural way for me to think about it.
00:13:18
Speaker
I'm going to talk about it in a couple other disciplines here.
00:13:21
Speaker
A lot of times, I may have said this when I've had other writer friends on in the past, but when I'm writing, it feels like the story wants to go in a certain direction.
00:13:31
Speaker
And a lot of writers will say this, where it's like, I sit down at the keyboard and I'm going and, you know, either it feels like the story is taking me along or I take the story somewhere and it feels like the story is telling me, no, that is not where we need to go.
00:13:46
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Right?
00:13:46
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And so I reevaluate.
00:13:49
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Even if something that I come up with might be really awesome, right?
00:13:54
Speaker
That's that sort of kill your darlings phrase, right?
00:13:57
Speaker
I know growing up in the internet world trying to figure out...
00:14:02
Speaker
how to go into film when I wanted to.
00:14:04
Speaker
People were like, one of the number one things you need to know, kill your darlings.
00:14:07
Speaker
You probably will have to cut that scene that you love, which I don't think is always true.
00:14:11
Speaker
But it certainly can be true.
00:14:13
Speaker
There's a lot of times where something that you might really treasure as an artist, getting to do as an artist, doesn't actually serve the art that you're making as well.
00:14:26
Speaker
Which is weird in the age of art that we live in.
00:14:30
Speaker
Because...
00:14:32
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Our current sort of age of art, the phase that we're in, is very self-expression motivated, which art has not always been.
00:14:46
Speaker
For the majority of art history, art was by commission from the church, or it had to do with mythology, or aesthetic purposes or public enjoyment.
00:14:59
Speaker
But it was rarely...
00:15:01
Speaker
for the majority of the history of art, just something that somebody was doing because they had something in themselves that they wanted to express, right?
00:15:10
Speaker
Maybe this comes about from, I don't know, the advent of the digital age, right?
00:15:14
Speaker
Like anybody can make a YouTube video and do what I'm doing now and share their thoughts out there and just be like, this is my individual thing, throwing that out there and I'm sharing that with you.
00:15:27
Speaker
And that's still communal and great.
00:15:29
Speaker
But
00:15:31
Speaker
You know, we live in an age now where there's these weird... You know, there's certainly still things for public good, right?
00:15:39
Speaker
Like we have big budget Broadway shows or like Avengers movies, right?
00:15:43
Speaker
And these are like things that the public generally enjoy that I don't think somebody probably goes into an Avengers movie most of the time saying, I'm really excited to express this part of myself and share this part of myself with the world.
00:15:58
Speaker
I think they're probably going in being like, okay...
00:16:01
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This the audience loves these characters.
00:16:03
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So what can we do with these characters?
00:16:04
Speaker
That's great for the audience, you know Same with like a Broadway show about like a popular story or something like that But we also have a lot of things where it's like this is a weird off-Broadway thing that one person wrote in their bedroom
00:16:18
Speaker
And it just expresses their heart, you know, like Tick Tick Boom is a great example of that.
00:16:23
Speaker
That's just Jonathan Larson being like, this is my experience as a guy in New York trying to make it as a musical composer and it's not working.
00:16:31
Speaker
So I'm going to express all of that and everything about myself in this season in this, you know, quick sort of musical.
00:16:38
Speaker
It's not quick.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's a full length musical.
00:16:41
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Small.
00:16:41
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That's the word.
00:16:42
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Small musical.
00:16:45
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You know, and go on tour with it.
00:16:47
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Very self-expressive.
00:16:50
Speaker
But even if an artistic work starts out from something inside of us,
00:17:00
Speaker
Ultimately, once we put the work out there and the work sort of becomes its own thing in a way, we have to serve that.
00:17:07
Speaker
Once we start writing that song or writing that book or playing that part or singing in that choir piece, we ultimately have to serve the work, not our goals and agenda in the work.
00:17:19
Speaker
Right?
00:17:19
Speaker
It's like the classic pitfall of Christian art that's probably been talked to death at this point.
00:17:25
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Generally, you don't want Christian art to be a sermon, right?
00:17:28
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Those have their place in the kingdom of God.
00:17:31
Speaker
But by and large, if you talk to an artist, they're going to say, yeah, I like, I don't like when it's a movie that is trying to preach at me.
00:17:40
Speaker
I do like when it's a movie that a Christian's directed and has interesting themes, right?
00:17:45
Speaker
Like Lord of the Rings versus a Kendrick's Brother movie.
00:17:47
Speaker
Again, those have their place in the kingdom of God.
00:17:49
Speaker
And, you know, those are great.
00:17:51
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They've spoken to me before.
00:17:52
Speaker
But yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
when you go at it with any kind of agenda and are like, okay, I'm going to make this, this thing for whatever reason, be it to try and serve this message or to serve ourselves, which is ultimately what's happening when we're not serving the art that causes a problem.
00:18:11
Speaker
Um, you want to serve both the work and you want to serve the audience, which I think can be a hard thing for artists to hear because I think, um,
00:18:21
Speaker
A lot of time, okay, not all artists.
00:18:22
Speaker
I think depending on the artist, that can be a hard thing for artists to hear.
00:18:28
Speaker
I think if you're like a musician or maybe an author who's found a following and has found an audience, I think a lot of times there can be
Lessons from Acting Roles in Serving Art
00:18:38
Speaker
a really great bond there.
00:18:38
Speaker
But I know...
00:18:40
Speaker
for the performing arts, probably like theater and film and maybe I don't know if ballet has this, but a lot of times I think the attitude there is like, okay, the audience doesn't really know what they want.
00:18:54
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They don't really know what's good.
00:18:57
Speaker
And then when we present them with this great, interesting work of art, they don't like it.
00:19:02
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That's dumb.
00:19:03
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They don't know what they're talking about.
00:19:04
Speaker
They're just a dumb audience.
00:19:06
Speaker
But in actuality, they're the people that are taking in this work, right?
00:19:12
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So you want to serve them as well.
00:19:14
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You want them to receive something from it.
00:19:17
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You don't want to say, hey, audience, come watch me do my self-aggrandizing, you know, over-the-top bloated work that, you know, is self-therapy for me, right?
00:19:34
Speaker
So what does that look like?
00:19:36
Speaker
I have a couple examples of me not doing it so well and realizing how to do it better.
00:19:41
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First is my old pal Hammy, Hamlet.
00:19:45
Speaker
I know I've talked about Hamlet like a gazillion times, but I think this fits quite well here.
00:19:52
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As will come to no surprise to anybody who's listened to this podcast for any length of time, I love Hamlet, the character and the play.
00:19:58
Speaker
And so I was just over the moon to have the chance to do the production of Hamlet that I did and play that part.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I had very strong opinions about Hamlet, as everybody, I think, in that show did, quite frankly, which was weird.
00:20:14
Speaker
But I had very strong opinions and I had other strong opinions about him flying at me.
00:20:19
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And so I got to the point where I was really fighting hard, I think, for the version of Hamlet that I saw in my head.
00:20:25
Speaker
And I'm glad that I did that to some degree because I think it did create this very interesting version of that character that I was very glad to play.
00:20:34
Speaker
But I got to the first weekend.
00:20:36
Speaker
And I realized that I was rereading an acting book, Respect for Acting, because I was going to do an acting class that summer.
00:20:46
Speaker
So I was just refreshing myself on all the lingo and technical stuff.
00:20:49
Speaker
And I was like, I know what I'm doing, but I really should.
00:20:51
Speaker
If I'm having these people read these books, I should reread them myself.
00:20:55
Speaker
And so I'm reading what I would consider to be some more basic, maybe not basic, but I don't know, intermediate.
00:21:04
Speaker
It's not...
00:21:06
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Not complex acting things, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
Like this is what I would say is sort of your first or second ceiling you have to break through as an actor, which is just you have to...
00:21:20
Speaker
Let everything go when you're on stage and you have to connect with the person that's there across from you and listen to them and just let it be what it is and serve them and serve the story.
00:21:34
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I was reading this and I was like, you know, shoot, I'm not doing that with Hamlet.
00:21:40
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I am trying to manhandle this.
00:21:43
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And to some extent, I was not consciously trying to manhandle things around me, but I was so focused on like,
00:21:50
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This has to be this because this is what I want it to be.
00:21:54
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I want Hamlet to be this and perceived as this.
00:21:57
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And so I want that to come across.
00:22:00
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And so I need to do this all perfect and I need to hit these pitch perfect points so that I perform this exactly the way that I want and I communicate exactly what I want to the audience.
00:22:12
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And I realized, oh, that is really harming my performance.
00:22:17
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It actually would be a lot better if I just let it go.
00:22:19
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Because I've done the work with this character that I need to, and now I can just let it go and serve the actors on stage and the show.
00:22:30
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And my performance, I swear, got much better and more naturalistic in that opening weekend than it had been the entire rehearsal process and was better for the show.
00:22:41
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Because I...
00:22:44
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put my own agenda for the character towards the back.
00:22:50
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Everything I'd poured into the character was still there, but I left it alone and said, okay, now it's going to be what it's going to be.
00:22:57
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And it's going to be whatever's best for the show.
00:22:59
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And I'm going to focus on the people on stage with me and the audience that's there.
00:23:05
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The other example from a recent thing that I did was The Shining Lives.
00:23:10
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I just, a couple weeks ago, closed that show at Master Arts.
00:23:16
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It was produced by Alive Theater.
00:23:18
Speaker
If you go back actually to the start of this year, I have an interview with Christine Hall who started Alive Theater if you wanna know more about the show.
00:23:26
Speaker
But I ended up having to step into a role for that back in January last minute.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so then they already knew they were going to do it at Master Arts in October.
00:23:36
Speaker
That was part of their deal with Master Arts Theater.
00:23:40
Speaker
And so they offered for me to come back and play the small parts that I stepped into.
00:23:45
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, I really enjoyed that group.
00:23:48
Speaker
And I really enjoyed getting to sort of help them
00:23:51
Speaker
out in their inception and in the exciting opportunity that they had.
00:23:59
Speaker
So I was doing this and I only had a couple small parts, but I realized just because of some different life things that this might be the last acting thing that I do for like a year or possibly longer, just because of some different life things.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I love acting, man.
00:24:16
Speaker
Acting is the real artistic thing that I love.
00:24:18
Speaker
And I'm like, oh boy.
00:24:20
Speaker
These are the last scenes I'm going to do for maybe a year, year and a half.
00:24:24
Speaker
I want to make sure that they count, right?
00:24:25
Speaker
I want these to be good scenes.
00:24:27
Speaker
And they are quite well-written scenes.
00:24:29
Speaker
I was quite lucky in that regard.
00:24:32
Speaker
But I only had like two or three, right?
00:24:35
Speaker
So I'm really just, I'm really trying to get in it and like,
00:24:40
Speaker
milk it basically um and i keep getting the note john you just need to you need to not care as much as your character and i was like that was hard for me to grasp and logically i could see it because i was a i was a doctor the one scene in particular that i'm talking about because i was a couple different characters but i was a doctor who had to deliver this is difficult news to these women that they have radium poisoning and that that is terminal that they will die with that if not from it
00:25:11
Speaker
And I'm like, ooh, that's heavy.
00:25:12
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:25:13
Speaker
That's an intense thing for me to say.
00:25:15
Speaker
I'm gonna treat that with a lot of weight.
00:25:17
Speaker
And they're like, John, that needs to not have as much weight for you.
00:25:20
Speaker
I needed to back off so that their characters actually had the opportunity to feel that, to have the emotions that they needed to feel for them to have the weight and me just to be there.
00:25:31
Speaker
And I just, it was really hard for me.
00:25:33
Speaker
And it got to the point where I, one rehearsal, just told myself,
00:25:38
Speaker
that I think I need to stop trying so hard and just kind of throw the lines out there and just throw out the diagnosis.
00:25:47
Speaker
And again, just let it be, but just kind of throw the line out there.
00:25:50
Speaker
And that's probably what the scene in the show needs, which is really hard for me to stomach because that basically meant, John, you need to act less in my brain, right?
00:26:00
Speaker
I don't think that that's actually what I did.
00:26:03
Speaker
But I've given that note to other actors before, and now I understood why it's so hard to take, just throw it out there.
00:26:12
Speaker
I was like, what do you mean?
00:26:13
Speaker
I can't act as much, self?
00:26:15
Speaker
Come on, John, what are you saying?
00:26:17
Speaker
But I was like, I really felt like they needed me to have less emotional range and give what would probably be to me less of an exciting performance because my character was not at all the focus of that scene at all.
00:26:35
Speaker
It is the women who are receiving the diagnosis.
00:26:38
Speaker
And my doctor just needed to put it out there and step back for them to take it and them to run with it and them to have all the weight of it.
00:26:46
Speaker
There were a couple moments where the weight could still hit the character, but very small.
00:26:51
Speaker
And for the most part, he really needed to be together.
00:26:54
Speaker
So while that resulted in me doing what I would probably think maybe is like less exciting acting, right?
00:27:02
Speaker
Because I don't have as much emotional range or something like that.
00:27:06
Speaker
I got to be a part of a pivotal, one of the most pivotal scenes in that show,
00:27:12
Speaker
And serve those other actors by giving them a really amazing moment.
Collaboration in Art as a Collective Service
00:27:18
Speaker
That sounds like I'm tooting my own horn.
00:27:20
Speaker
Because of the script, right?
00:27:21
Speaker
It's an amazing moment for them.
00:27:22
Speaker
So if I do it right and I do it in such a way that gives them the space to do that, where I'm not hogging all of the emotional currency, but rather allow them to kind of have it.
00:27:33
Speaker
That serves them well as actors, and that serves the story better, which is about them.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's not about my character.
00:27:39
Speaker
It's about them.
00:27:40
Speaker
I think that can be really hard for artists because a lot of artists nowadays, myself included, probably a lot of people listening to this podcast, go in thinking about what parts of themselves they're expressing in this.
00:27:52
Speaker
But ultimately, we need to be able to let that all go aside and listen to the art that we're making and figure out what does that want to be?
00:28:02
Speaker
What does it need to be?
00:28:04
Speaker
However you want to picture that.
00:28:05
Speaker
Maybe that's God trying to form it into something particular.
00:28:08
Speaker
Maybe the art has a life of its own.
00:28:11
Speaker
You know, maybe it's something in your subconscious.
00:28:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:14
Speaker
Or maybe it's what the audience hears.
00:28:17
Speaker
But ultimately, we need to be willing to put ourselves...
00:28:23
Speaker
on the back burner, put ourselves on the lowest rung, not because we don't matter.
00:28:27
Speaker
We're still on a rung, right?
00:28:29
Speaker
That's still something that we're on the ladder, but we're not number one, right?
00:28:36
Speaker
We're not on the top of the pyramid.
00:28:38
Speaker
We're down at the bottom.
00:28:39
Speaker
You got to take care of the bottom of the pyramid, but it's not the shiniest part.
00:28:42
Speaker
It's not the thing you're polishing the most, but you do have to take care of it.
00:28:47
Speaker
You have to serve the art, not make the art serve you and your own experience.
00:28:53
Speaker
Because ultimately, you do experience the art in a particular way, but it's not nearly as important as the audience's experience, right?
00:29:01
Speaker
You don't really, as an artist, get to experience the work of art.
00:29:05
Speaker
You get to create it, and that in and of itself is its own experience.
00:29:10
Speaker
But even if, as an actor, you went through an entire performance and didn't feel a thing...
00:29:16
Speaker
in some sense, but the performance still worked for the audience, that still works.
00:29:21
Speaker
Even if you're like, man, my technique for acting was horrible, right?
00:29:25
Speaker
Or if you sing and your voice is all tight and it doesn't, it's not as perfect or clear as you would like it to be, but for the audience, it's still moving and lovely and those notes soar for them.
00:29:36
Speaker
then it was great.
00:29:36
Speaker
And you didn't actually experience the work of art that they did.
00:29:40
Speaker
They experienced it.
00:29:41
Speaker
You just created it.
00:29:42
Speaker
Even if you didn't feel like you did it as perfectly as you could, you gave what you had and served the art and served the audience and served whoever else was creating with you.
00:29:51
Speaker
A lot of times in my brain, I liken that there's two things I'd liken it to.
00:29:56
Speaker
One is a symphony.
00:29:58
Speaker
Um,
00:30:00
Speaker
If you hear an orchestral piece and one of the parts is really loud when it's not supposed to be loud, that will destroy that piece.
00:30:09
Speaker
which I had to learn a lot when I played in the symphony, because whilst a lot of people like to say that first violins always get melodies, I think that a lot of conductors, because violins get melody, pick pieces where violins don't get melody.
00:30:22
Speaker
So a lot of times, there were a couple ones I had melody on that were cool.
00:30:25
Speaker
But the melody, if you are not super musical, that's the main thing that you hear, right?
00:30:29
Speaker
So if you're thinking about...
00:30:31
Speaker
Darth Vader's theme in Star Wars, because I'm going to talk about that in a second.
00:30:35
Speaker
The melody is the bum, bum, bum, bum.
00:30:38
Speaker
And then everything else, the harmony is what's going on around it.
00:30:43
Speaker
But if you have me as the violin, I got to play Empire Strikes Back, the sort of end credit suite one year for orchestra, which was amazing because I love Star Wars.
00:30:55
Speaker
But we as the violins, you don't get melody in like scores as a string.
00:31:01
Speaker
That's all the brass, right?
00:31:03
Speaker
Unless you're a cello or like a bass maybe because they like those deep sounds.
00:31:09
Speaker
But certainly not for Star Wars or John Williams.
00:31:11
Speaker
He uses brass a lot.
00:31:12
Speaker
So we're playing Darth Vader's theme and that's amazing.
00:31:16
Speaker
And you're hearing the bom bom bom from the brass.
00:31:20
Speaker
But I in the background as a violin, I'm just going...
00:31:26
Speaker
You know, it's just this kind of really simple sort of, you're shaking, you know, it'd be called tremolo.
00:31:32
Speaker
It's this little thing in the background.
00:31:34
Speaker
But it would sound really, really, really horrible if the violins were like, you know what, we would have a lot more fun playing this piece if we were loud and threw a lot of vibrato in there and were very emotional.
00:31:47
Speaker
because then you wouldn't hear the melody.
00:31:50
Speaker
You would hear this weird, dramatic, shaky violin sound that is going to ruin entirely the piece.
00:31:58
Speaker
But you can still find joy in being the part of the art that you are.
00:32:04
Speaker
When you can let it go and just realize you're a part of this tapestry of some beautiful work.
00:32:12
Speaker
That in and of itself is amazing.
00:32:14
Speaker
Being able to be in the middle of a beautiful work of sound and music and just being a small part of that is amazing.
00:32:23
Speaker
Being a bit part actor in an amazing show where you get to support some people and give them the opportunity to have some great moments because you're there saying the lines that they need said to them is fantastic because you're a part of this wonderful work, right?
00:32:40
Speaker
As a writer,
00:32:43
Speaker
cutting out that part that you love because it makes the whole work better and you still get to be a part of making that wonderful work, even if that one piece that you love wasn't in the tapestry, then that's okay.
00:32:59
Speaker
The tapestry is that second thing I would liken it to.
00:33:01
Speaker
Tapestries are huge.
00:33:02
Speaker
There's all these different things.
00:33:04
Speaker
But ultimately, a tapestry is one piece.
00:33:06
Speaker
It's not those specific moments.
00:33:08
Speaker
And what you don't want is for one piece to overwhelm the rest of the sum of the parts.
00:33:16
Speaker
The sum of the parts should be greater than the one piece.
00:33:22
Speaker
Sometimes that's just going to happen, right?
00:33:24
Speaker
Where you're going to have...
00:33:26
Speaker
One, you know, one scene is going to be really perfect, well written, you know, or one solo is lovely or one performance.
00:33:36
Speaker
That happens, but it should not happen because somebody is there like, I'm going to steal the scene and I'm going to steal the show because I want to do this and it's about me.
Parallels between Art and Christian Living
00:33:46
Speaker
It should happen because that person is honestly trying to serve the work and serve the audience.
00:33:50
Speaker
And maybe they have fun doing that.
00:33:52
Speaker
I think when you really do that, you do have fun.
00:33:55
Speaker
But it should not be about your part.
00:33:57
Speaker
It should be about the work that you're serving and about the audience, which is very similar to the Christian life.
00:34:04
Speaker
It should not be about your part in the story.
00:34:07
Speaker
It should really be about God, about the work of God.
00:34:11
Speaker
How do you fit into that?
00:34:13
Speaker
How, where is God already working in the things that you're doing?
00:34:18
Speaker
And how do you serve the world and the church and everyone around you?
00:34:24
Speaker
So that, those are my thoughts on servanthood
Listener Engagement on Servanthood Experiences
00:34:29
Speaker
and art.
00:34:29
Speaker
I'd like to hear from you guys.
00:34:32
Speaker
What are some times where you've done maybe, you know, less than glamorous things in a piece of art or you've had to cut out something that you really loved or put yourself on the back burner, excuse me, for your work of art or for the work of God and it's really paid off and you've gotten to see something really, really beautiful.
00:34:53
Speaker
I would love to hear that.
00:34:54
Speaker
Or if there's some ways where you feel like right now you're really struggling to find that balance between, you know, living out
00:35:02
Speaker
a sort of life of servanthood and, you know, boundaries and taking care of yourself and figuring out, okay, what does that look like for me to serve God or serve the people around me or serve this work of art that I'm creating?
00:35:16
Speaker
Love to hear from you guys.
00:35:18
Speaker
As always, you can comment in the YouTube video down below or on our social media posts or throw in a message on the form on our website.
00:35:27
Speaker
Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and thank you guys for listening.
00:35:31
Speaker
God bless.